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1. Science Bootcamp Goes Virtual: A Compressed, Interdisciplinary Online Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) Promotes Psychosocial Gains in STEM Transfer Students

   Majka, Elizabeth; Guenther, Merrilee F.; Raimondi, Stacey L. (January 2021, Journal of microbiology biology education)

   null (Ed.)

   Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) are well-documented as high-impact practices that can broaden participation and success in STEM. Drawing primarily from a community-of-practice theoretical framework, we previously developed an interdisciplinary CURE course (Science Bootcamp) for STEM majors focused entirely on the scientific process. Among first-year students, Science Bootcamp leads to psychosocial gains and increased retention. In the current study, we test whether an online Science Bootcamp also improves outcomes for STEM transfer students—a group that faces “transfer shock,” which can negatively impact GPA, psychosocial outcomes, and retention. To this end, we redesigned Science Bootcamp to a two-week course for STEM transfer students to complete prior to beginning the fall semester at our four-year institution. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the course was conducted in an entirely virtual format, using primarily synchronous instruction. Despite the course being virtual, the diverse group of STEM majors worked in small groups to conduct rigorous, novel empirical research projects from start to finish, even presenting their results in a poster symposium. Assessment data confirm the compressed, online Science Bootcamp contains key CURE components—opportunities for collaboration, discovery/relevance, and iteration—and that students were highly satisfied with the course. Moreover, in line with our hypothesis, STEM transfer students who participated in the online Science Bootcamp experienced a range of psychosocial gains (e.g., belonging to STEM). In sum, these findings suggest our online Science Bootcamp promotes positive STEM outcomes, representing a highly flexible and affordable CURE that can be scaled for use at institutions of any size. 

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2. Successful Integration of Face-to-Face Bootcamp Lab Courses in a Hybrid Online STEM Program

   https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v20i3.1769  

   Ardissone, Alexandria N; Oli, Monika W; Rice, Kelly C; Galindo, Sebastian; Urrets-Zavalia, Macarena; Wysocki, Allen F; Triplett, Eric W; Drew, Jennifer C (January 2019, Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education)

   The Microbiology and Cell Science program at the University of Florida compressed two standard 16-week lab courses into five-day versions of the course, which are referred to as bootcamp labs. The bootcamp labs have the same objectives, activities, and assessments as their traditional counterparts. Development of the bootcamp labs was part of a larger effort to increase access to the major, and more broadly STEM, by offering a 2+2 hybrid online transfer program. The results of this mixed-methods study include a direct comparison between bootcamp and traditional lab format as an approach for delivery of a face-to-face lab course. The bootcamp lab cohort has a greater diversity of students, with more women and underrepresented minorities in STEM than the traditional semester-long cohorts. Students in the bootcamp labs have comparable grade outcomes and learning gains to students in traditional lab format. Regression analysis identified GPA, but not lab format, as the most significant predictor of success for students enrolled in lab courses. Qualitative results suggest that the bootcamp format may be a better way than traditional formats to teach microbiology lab. In summary, the results demonstrate that a bootcamp version of a face-to-face microbiology course is just as effective as the traditional semester-long version. This work has broader implications as it supports the bootcamp lab approach as a model in STEM education for increasing access and for overcoming a major barrier to online STEM programs: face-to-face delivery of key lab courses. 

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3. Pandemic Pivots: The Successful Transition of an NSF Research Internship to an Online Format

   McIntyre, N. E. (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   The Transfer-to-Excellence Summer Research Program is an exciting opportunity for community college students to conduct hands-on research in the labs of faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. Funded by an NSF Science and Technology Center and a private foundation, the program seeks to inspire students to transfer and complete a Bachelor’s degree in science or engineering. Typically a nine-week residential program, the 2020 Transfer-to-Excellence program was greatly impacted by COVID-19 and a state-wide Shelter-in-Place order. This paper details the successful transition of the Transfer-to-Excellence program to an online format, including remote research projects, mentoring, bootcamp, professional development, and community building events. Analysis of quantitative evaluation data demonstrates that, despite the remote format, interns had a very positive internship experience and highly satisfying mentoring relationships with graduate students. Most notably, the internship significantly enhanced students’ confidence to succeed as a student in science and engineering, and self-efficacy in their research skills. As such, this paper and poster presentation will provide a model for similar NSF funded programs pursuing an online format. The administrative team expects such transitions to become increasingly common for various reasons, including the need to adapt to unexpected health and environmental barriers, reducing cost, and expanding access to nontraditional students unable to participate in residential programs. 

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4. Authentic Scientific Research through an Undergraduate Ecology Course

   https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2023.85.6.336  

   Burgin, Stephen R.; Siepielski, Adam M. (August 2023, The American Biology Teacher)

   Undergraduate science students who volunteer within a research laboratory group, or participate in funded research opportunities, in general are those who have the opportunity to engage in authentic research. In this article, we report the findings from two different iterations of a semester-long collaboration between a biology faculty member and a science education faculty member at a major research institution in the Southeastern United States. Specifically, the faculty members designed an ecology laboratory course for upper-level undergraduate students (primarily biology majors) where they would engage in an original and highly authentic ecological research project. The goal of this course was to have students explicitly learn about the nature of science (NOS), and authentic scientific practices such as inquiry and experimentation in the context of their own research. In the second year of the course, the global COVID-19 pandemic forced us to modify our approach to accomplish the same goals, but now in a remote and online format. Using questionnaires, concept inventories, and semi-structured interviews, the impact of the course on students’ understandings of NOS, inquiry, and experimentation, in addition to their perspectives on the experience within the course compared to prior laboratory coursework, was investigated. We found that students showed modest gains in each of the aforementioned desirable outcomes. These gains were generally comparable in both face-to-face and remote course settings. Additionally, students shared with us their preference for authentic laboratory work as compared with the typical laboratory work with its given research question and step-by-step instructions. Our research demonstrates what is possible in both face-to-face and remote undergraduate laboratory courses in biology and the positive impact that was observed in our students. We hope it serves as a model for other scientists and science educators as they collaborate to design authentic research-based coursework for undergraduate biology students. 

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5. An Overview of the Multi-Disciplinary Data Science (MDaS) S-STEM Scholarship Program

   Rossetti, M. D.; Pohl, E. P.; Hill, B.; Wu, X.; Turner, R. C.; Offord, J. (June 2022, ASEE annual conference exposition proceedings)

   This paper provides an overview of the MDaS S-STEM scholarship program. With the growing need for professionals with technology and critical thinking skills related to data analysis, the MDaS program employs established recruitment and retention activities for undergraduates in STEM fields, to encourage consideration of careers in data science related fields. The purpose of the program is to provide financial and professional support to low-income and underrepresented STEM students to improve their chances of completing degrees related to data science. This paper presents the motivation for the program, its goals, structure, research questions, and the design and implementation of its bootcamp cohort building component for engaging students. The results and experiences related to its first year of operation are presented. 

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